We all have great stories. The best ones are the tales, often embellished, of our real experiences. This is a home for first-person stories and fictionalized memoirs; a place where fact and fantasy are encouraged to dance together.

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Thursday, March 8, 2012

The Rollover

It was a green ‘55 Chevy station wagon. My
Dad bought it for me the previous summer. (We hardly had any money in 1969; I
had none.) It was ugly but fun. We called it The Pickle.

In early February 1970, the Pickle and I were
wending northward on the two lane ribbon from Bartlesville,
OK to Wichita, KS where my fiancée was a student at Friends
University. The purpose was to bring Annette back down to
Bartlesville for the weekend college Valentine banquet.

I had just removed the snow tires, snow being
long gone in Bartlesville. The ones I put back on the car were nearly
treadless. Big deal. The roads were all dry. Just north of Winfield, KS,
the rain began. I passed a car at about 60 mph. The driver told me later he was
concerned about that. Silly guy thought I was going too fast. I’d been on this
road enough times to predict the next 4 curves at any point on the journey. On
a very familiar section, I glided into a gentle, easy right-hander. It had been
recently patched, but I didn’t know that. The patched area was a smooth, mostly
tar, surface. The Pickle lost traction and got sideways.

The tires then encountered normal pavement and
got their grip back. Get this: I left the road on the inside of the curve! Ever
heard of that? Down the embankment. Up the other side, still trying to steer my
way out of of my self-inflicted predicament. Back down that embankment. Doom
approaching.

When the left front tire caught the slope back up
to the highway (I’m currently below the road surface) it flipped me. Noise.
Chaos. Rattles and bangs. Popped out windshield – one piece. Tire iron and huge
jack levitating somewhere in back. No seatbelt (not invented yet in ’55 autos).
Head banging on the left door post every time the thing took another roll for
the top. That would be 3 times, because we rolled 2 ½, coming to a stop on the
roof. That was the noisiest experience my ears had suffered in my 19 years.

The car had rolled along the bottom “V” of the
two embankments, pinching the nose and rear of the car down into a goofy
imitation of a pea pod. I was lying out full length on the roof, feet in the
back cargo area, hands still gripping the steering wheel. The engine had
stopped. Still, I reached up (not down) to the ignition key and turned it off.
I opened the door (yes, it worked fine) and climbed out, just as the
trepidatious fellow I had recently passed tentatively drove onto the grassy
shoulder. He said he was “never so glad to see a car door open” as when he saw
me emerge from the broken, dripping Pickle. When I stood up, I noticed one
front tire was still rotating. The windshield was lying in the grass on the
bank a few yards away, barely cracked. The only personal damage was a slightly
chipped tooth and a small bruise on my pelvis. Oh, and the pride.

I sold the thing to a junk dealer for $50. A
bemused friend drove up from Bartlesville to get me to Wichita to meet my
wondering future wife, and we all drove back in the dark. By then there was a
blinding blizzard going on. This adventure took most of the night. (Wesley
Goss, thank you, wherever you are.)

I did stop by the junkyard a few times on later
trips to pay my respects to The Pickle. Somewhere in a box I still have a
forlorn photo.